The US’s National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California, is hoping to recreate conditions that exist at the very centre of the Sun, here on Earth.

They plan to do this by focusing the world’s largest laser, well actually 192 lasers, on a small pellet of hydrogen fuel in an experiment scheduled for 2010.

The laser was certified by the US Department of Energy late last week after 12 years of construction, officially making it the world’s largest and highest-energy laser.

In attempting to create a tiny star, the laser will transfer 500 trillion watts of power to the pellet for a few nanoseconds. The reaction should theoretically create temperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures billions of times greater than the Earth’s atmospheric pressure. 

What scientist hope to achieve from this experiment is a net energy gain. Basically, they are hoping that the process will cause the hydrogen fuel to produce between 10 and 100 times more energy than that used to set-off the reaction.

If the experiment realises a net energy gain the scientists will have conducted the world’s first controlled thermonuclear reaction; opening the way for nuclear fusion and the promise of clean, abundant energy.

Image: Credit is given to Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy under whose auspices this work was performed.
Video: www.thenewsmarket.com